Free Speech Movement
20th Anniversary Project

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Nancy Skinner: Twenty years ago
some students, right here, wanted the simple right to have the tables to express their
political views, to extend the constitutional right of free speech to the educational
arena, of this institution, The University of California.

The struggle that
ensued and the victory that they achieved is what we are celebrating today. (Applause.)
What else are we celebrating? Those of us at the Graduate Assembly and the other student
groups and Free Speech Movement veterans that initiated this commemoration did so because
we believe the the movement is not dead, and that those of us who are a part of it are
facing some very serious challenges in this country.

We felt that it
was a time to ask our Movement brothers and sisters to come back. Those student leaders
who challenged this University during the Free Speech Movement, and challenged this
country during the anti-war -- during the Vietnam War. We wanted to bring them back and
sit down and talk, share a few lessons, insights and wisdom. Ask them: what gave you the
courage to act as you did? What lessons did you learn? What mistakes did you make? What
can you tell us, those who must carry out this responsibility forward with you, and face
the challenge of an increasing cold war mentality; increasing military intervention in
Central America; an increasing threat of nuclear war. What can you -- leaders of
the past -- tell us that will help us carry this movement forward? We -- those of
us organizing these events -- also want to strip away the media myths that the Eighties is
a generation of conservatism and disinterest. (Applause.)

We -- those of us
assembled today -- are a complex and diverse group. We have many different reasons for
being here; the media can't write us off or brand us. We can still use this form of large
assembly as we demonstrate that was so prominent in the 1960's. But we also use many
different forms: The ballot box. We passed the nuclear weapons freeze and we continue to
elect Ron Dellums. Direct action: as at the Livermore Lab. (Applause.) Organizing:
we are organizing, as in the case at the Graduate Student Union, the Association of
Graduate Student Employees. (Applause.) And we use long-range action, as in the
minority students on this campus, initiation of recruitment centers and tutoring programs
to increase minority enrollment. (Applause.)

Now is the time to
allow our teachers to speak out and tell their story. I hope that after this rally you
will come to the rest of the events of this week, and that they serve to awaken the spark
of the movement that is in all of us.

Song and singing
was incredibly important to all of the movements of the 1960's, and to all the political
movements prior and current. I'm proud to open this program with the Freedom Song Network.
(Applause.)

[Group singing.
(Applause.)]

Nancy Skinner: Thank you,
Freedom Song Network. Gus Newport, our Mayor of Berkeley, would not be the Mayor of
Berkeley if it were not for the civil rights movement, the Free Speech Movement, the other
political activities of the 1960's, on this campus and in Berkeley that led to Berkeley's
reputation as the progressive capitol of the world. (Applause.) Mayor Newport is a
man of strong principles and a champion of peace and social justice for it's respected not
only in Berkeley but around the world. I'm honored to introduce our Mayor: Gus Newport. (Applause.)

Gus Newport: I'm extremely
pleased to be here today to honor with you the 20th anniversary of the Free Speech
Movement. I'm extremely pleased to see the turnout here today because, as many of you
know, the media has been saying that students today are apathetic. But I know that's not
the case; we know that's not the case. We recognize that we are confronted at this moment
with a situation ______________ similar to that of 20 years ago today. And we all know,
better than any state, any campus in the country, that Ronald Reagan is a person that we
have to bust at all costs. (Applause - long and loud.) It's my feeling that
_______________ here today to say, yes, I have agreed that on this day, October second,
1984, once again we'll put forth a movement that will turn this country around.

You must recognize
that the Free Speech Movement brought moral integrity to this campus. It gave this
particular campus the breadth that was needed to send students forward to deal with the
social ills that existed in America. And as we said, for today we must recognize that it
is our duty not only to clean up this campus once again, this city, this state and this
country, so that we may save the rest of the world, but the Free Speech Movement is
necessary. We also need a purity in reporting movement. The media continues to say that
students are apathetic; that they're moving to the right; that 32 to 35 percent of them
are going to vote for Ronald Reagan. I know better than that; let me hear! (Loud
applause.)I know better than that! (Applause continues.) I was reminded by
Jesse Jackson yesterday, that the polls put forth by the media said that he would get only
8 percent of the vote in New York State, and only 9 percent in California. Well, he got 26
percent in New York State, and over 20 percent in California. (Applause) So that
Reagan _____________ to move forward. The media does not have the methodology for putting
forth the truth to the American public. It is time for us to stand up and take our rights
back and determine for ourselves what is going to be the destiny of this country! (Applause.)

As Nancy said
earlier, if it had not been for the Free Speech Movement, certainly someone like myself
would not be mayor today. Thank goodness for you all. (Laughter, applause.) Thank
goodness for Mario; thank goodness for all the people who were here 20 years ago. I just
want you to understand that even though 20 years ago the Free Speech Movement would
pass, the City of Berkeley is not perforce a progressive majority. We have a change come
November the 6th. Nancy Skinner, the woman who is M.C.ing this is running for City
Council, and I need that support. Ann Chandler is also running for City Council and
Maudelle Shirek is also running for City Council and I need her support. John Jelenik is
running for City Council and I need his support. If you give me that, we'll give you the
model city the likes of which you never thought could exist, and therefore we won't have
to be concerned, as to how we couch such words as "socialism",
"takeover", "of the people", because we will have the tools to do
it.Thank you. God bless! (Applause.)

Nancy Skinner: Thank you, Gus.
Gus -- our Mayor -- would also not be mayor if it weren't for the student vote. The
students have not voted. This week is the last week to register to vote. Students can use
the power of the ballot box to effect many changes. We need to use that right and that
responsibility, and if you're not registered yet, do it this week. There are tables all
around the Plaza, they'll be registering voters; the deadline is this week.

If we had a police
car today our next guest would need no introduction. (Laughter and applause.) He
could ____________ out of that car. A man whose arrest catalyzed the events that took
place here 20 years ago today. Jack Weinberg! (Long and loud applause.)

Jack Weinberg: Time's short;
time's short; no time for _______________. I want to thank the Graduate Assembly for
putting on this wonderful event and inviting me here. Since I've been around, people have
been asking me: "did the movement of the '60's accomplish anything?" And I guess
I have to deal with that as a question.

When I came to
Berkeley in 1961, the policies that dominated this country were the things that we now
identify with Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority. It was the movement of the Sixties
that changed all those things. In those days to oppose those kinds of ideas really was
hard; you had to really stand up; it was a very conformist time. Now, Ronald Reagan's
[been] in office for four years; he's not yet been able to reverse those gains, and
I want to say that I hope he doesn't get elected; even if he does get elected, it would
still take an enormous struggle and social conflict to reverse what was accomplished in
the Sixties. I think nobody should say that nothing has happened, and nothing can
happen. (Applause.)

Edwin Meese, who
[was the] Alameda County District Attorney to prosecute the Free Speech Movement, has been
nominated for Attorney General. Ronald Reagan is in the White House and he got his
political career started by running against Berkeley students. A reporter called me up and
pointed those things out to me, and said, "look at all that! Your friends are
dispersed to the wind. Who won?" And my answer was, "I think it's still too
early to say." (Laughter and applause.)

When I came to
Berkeley, I came here because I'd had to get out of my home town; the little world -- its
narrow-mindedness was driving me crazy. I wasn't a political person; I wasn't an activist;
I wasn't even a trouble-maker yet! (Laughter.) But I did come here because I
thought this was a place where I could find truth and I could find knowledge. One way I
was a radical: I had no respect for constituted authority. I think that's why I chose math
to study, because in math, if you say something's true, you gotta be able to prove it. A
twelve- year-old who can see a mistake in your logic has the right to point it out. And
that's, I think, in different forms, the kind of thinking that made something like the
student movement possible. People were going by their own inner lights.

In later years the
movement became a fad; it became, "come to campus and see what's happening." I
think that might have been its high point, but I think what starts new things is people
who have some sense of truth, of right and wrong, of necessity -- and are willing to act
on it in the hopes it'll catch on, and you can't control events, but things do catch on. I
was a teaching assistant in mathematics when the Civil Rights movement changed my life.
There was a movement going on the rural south; I read about it, I heard about it; people
were dying for the right to vote, to sit at a Woolworth's lunch counter, and some friends
of mine -- I didn't think I could do anything about it, and some friends invited me to a
meeting, and I went and then I started running the mimeograph machine and I started
handing out leaflets, and after awhile, I gave up my studies that had taken over my life.
And at the time, at the time -- I got some very good adult advice. They were telling me,
"Listen, finish your studies -- launch your career. If you want to change the world,
this is the way you can change it -- by being an intellectual person."

But I knew that I
wasn't yet [what] I was going to be, and what I was doing right then in my life would
determine who I was; if I could change the world, what kind of changes I wanted to make.
So I felt compelled to go by what was moving me and not deferring to some future time. My
efforts -- the summer of 1964 was the high water point of the Civil Rights movement, in
Mississippi, but also here. We were sitting in, negotiating every week. And we believed
that when the students came back in the fall -- boy! That movement was going to take off,
like nobody had ever seen before. But the University had a different plan; they were under
pressure, they were told that we were using the campus as a launching pad for attacks on
the community, and they tried to stop us. That's where the Free Speech Movement came from.

But once the Free
Speech Movement started, it very quickly -- it started, I think, as a very direct
extension of part of the civil rights movement -- it turned into something completely
different, because hundreds of students were participating in it, they saw the
administration suddenly against what they thought right,against the civil rights movement.
They were shocked, they were angry. But the movement stopped being the students in support
of some others elsewhere in society. It started developing its own voice, its own
constituency, its own symbols, and it became a thing unto itself, and out of that
experience what became the radicalism of the 1960's student movement was born.

The country's
changed a lot since then. I don't think turning the clock back would be easy, even if
Ronald Reagan was elected with a big majority and tried to do it; but I hope that doesn't
happen.

Let me give two
examples. One: a central part of his program is to make abortion in America a criminal
act. I say, that if they try to do that, and try to enforce that law, it will trigger a
wave of resistance and repression that will make the 1960's look tame. (Loud applause.)Let
me give a second example. In the 1950's, it was considered treason for an American to
question or challenge this country's foreign policy, this country's strategic policy
today. The public today has become an accepted element in policy formation. Notice! In
this election campaign, Reagan has been forced to modulate his stance on Central America,
and his stance on nuclear policy, and that's a direct result of public pressure and
debate.

I tell you that if
they want to return to the kind of aggressive view of foreign policy that they had in the
'50's, and they want to reassert American, imperialist, world-domination by a sort of
military means, they're going to have to shut down the public debate, and to do that would
require a new McCarthyism and a new struggle, and again -- just the election won't change
it -- it's the movement of the people that has the effect, and don't forget it. (Loud
applause.)

I want to tell a
parable. There was this ancient king and he offered a portion of silver and gold to anyone
who could sum up in four words the universal political wisdom of the ages. And a wise man
got the reward with these four words: "this too shall pass." (Applause.)
This too shall pass; no matter how lofty the victory, or how bitter the defeat, there is
one conclusion that always remains: this too shall pass. But -- but -- in our
lifetime, for the first time in human history, that ancient parable, that ancient wisdom
is no longer true. If there occurs a significant nuclear exchange, the human
species will be destroyed. It will be an event which will not pass.

Throughout all of
our history there has been war, there has been death, there has been horror, but life goes
on. Our species is now advanced to the place where this no longer needs to be true. We can
destroy not only our own generation, not only future generations, we can destroy
Shakespeare; we can destroy Plato; we can destroy Bach; we can destroy Mohammed; we can
destroy the Rolling Stones, and (laughter) every other creation of human culture.

Now at heart, I'm
an optimist. I believe deeply that human action can change the course of human events. I
believe that when a necessity becomes strong enough, it requires human action, but I also
believe that unless there are fundamental changes, it's hard to imagine our species
lasting another 50 years. I think that the course we're on is a course that we can
survive. In any given year -- in any given crisis -- I believe the odds of a
nuclear catastrophe are slight. I don't see any particular event that's going to trigger
it. But I used to study mathematics, and I can't escape the logical proposition that
however slight those odds -- as long as you're willing to gamble, and you gamble often
enough, whatever the odds, you spin the wheel enough times -- your number will hit!
That's not a "maybe," that's not a hope it doesn't happen; you spin the
wheel enough times, whatever the odds, your number will hit. (Applause.)

Humans are going
to have to learn there exists no human value, no human objective that justifies risking
the survival of our species. (Applause, long and loud.) Unless we learn that, as a
group, we'll not only destroy ourselves, we'll probably destroy most other warm-blooded
animals. Now it might take ten years; it might take a hundred years; I can't make a
prediction on this. But that difference, in time frame, over the course of life of species
is insignificant. It's insignificant (Voice -- "time's up" and laughter.)

I'm going to take
one more minute if I can finish this idea. (Applause.) Don 't ... (talking from
audience) ... so long as we have the capacity to destroy our species, so long as
risking the destruction of our species remains a legitimate form of human behavior,
it's only a matter of time. With the survival of the species at stake, I want to put out a
couple of ideas for your consideration. What's called for, I say, is a new nationalism.
Our nation is a human species; our endangered culture is human culture; our homeland is
the planet Earth (applause; and our slogan is that there is no human value
that justifies risking the survival of our species. Thank you. (Loud, long applause.)

Nancy Skinner: Thank you, Jack
Weinberg. Our next speaker, Jackie Goldberg, is a high school teacher and an elected
member of the Los Angeles School Board. She was on the Executive Committee and the
Steering Committee of the Free Speech Movement. Welcome Jackie Goldberg! (Applause.)

Jackie Goldberg: I want to take
you back for a minute, twenty years ago today. I want you to pretend it's a cool, crisp,
October morning in 1964, tomorrow is a football game at which time Craig Morton will drop
the ball again at least three more times! (Laughter.) Which is a Berkeley
tradition!

We have been
banned from Bancroft and Telegraph and so now it becomes just as illegal to have
our tables right here as it does there, so we're putting them right here! (Applause.)
It's twelve noon, and what do the police do? [But (??)] in front of a crowd, not quite
this big, but everybody coming out of classes; they dragged Jack Weinberg from the CORE
table, "Congress of Racial Equality," across the plaza to about where the
middle group [here] is sitting, and arrest him in front of hundreds and hundreds of
students! If I had made it up, I couldn't have asked for anything more! (Loud
applause.) Because we in the United States live in a terrible dilemma -- the evil that
this system is capable of doing is kept carefully hidden, as long as they
can possibly hide it from us! (Loud applause.) And in that one incredible moment, imagine
driving a police car onto the center of this campus! Even in 1964 that was not
done. And they brought it right there, and for one quick moment, the only truly
spontaneous political action I've been involved in took place. And that is,
students who yesterday would not sign a petition to get our tables back at Bancroft and
Telegraph, 'cause they could care less -- sat down and entrapped that car for 39 hours! (Loud,
long applause.)

I want to dispel
one important misconception. That was not an act of cynical people -- that was an
act of people who truly believed in justice! (Loud applause.)

The single most
important method of social control in America is not the police -- yet (laughter)
-- it is cynicism! It is telling you it is all a crock, that nothing's any good,
and that ya better look out for number one alone! (Applause.)

Another important
misconception was that we were so different from you here today. We weren't any different
from you here today, except that you have longer hair, more beards, which I think is funny
since they attributed that to us -- we were all clean-shaven except for one or two, and
the women, of course, didn't have to worry about it. And I, for example, was pledge-mother
of my sorority! (Loud applause and laughter.) But we built a coalition which
included the conservatives, the liberals, the center, and the left -- most of whom had not
been used to talking to each other -- into the Free Speech Movement, out of a deep
commitment to our future in a society that had to be made more just! (Applause.)
You aren't any different than we were. You have that same commitment. People will try to
talk you out of it, media-you out of it, but you have that same commitment. As a high
school teacher, I know you! You are my students a few years later. You will not
allow us to return to the McCarthy era. I know you won't do that! (Long applause.)

And the movement
that you mount against that, will really end the beginning that happened twenty years ago.
Not because you can have a beginning and a middle and an end to history, but
because it'll be the logical outgrowth of the need of people to say there has to be
something better and more valuable than the dollar -- that's not what life is all
about. (Loud applause.)

We weren't all
radicals. Goldwater was running for president! We weren't all radicals; most people
would not sign a petition because they knew to do so jeopardized their jobs. We
were not all anything except committed, that in front of our very eyes like on that
October morning, they were not going to commit an atrocity in front of all of us, and they
expected us to walk by as if a little ripple in a pond had .....ed. And that's what
they think of you! That you will walk [on by] if a little ripple occurs when we invade E1
Salvador and Nicaragua! (Applause.) They are betting on you! But so am I --
and I'm going to win! (Applause.)

I think that
really is what happened 20 years ago, and the important thing to understand about
the Free Speech Movement is that you don't want free speech just so you can talk to hear
yourself talk! (Applause.) The majority never needs freedom of speech, it is
the majority! It is the minority point of view that needs freedom of speech. And
the second they begin to tel1 you that that person is too far on the fringe to be allowed
to talk, too far on the fringe to be allowed to participate, [not qu]ite the right kind
-- we don't let them speak -- you in the majority are in trouble! And that
is something, I hope, we can ......er out of that struggle. You fight for freedom of
speech because you need to be able to talk about racism, to begin to organize to end
racism. (Applause.) You talk about freedom of speech because you need to
organize to end sexism, which is_________________ in this society! (Applause.)
You need freedom of speech to call on the carpet people who tel1 you that if they can kill
you more times today than they could yesterday, you are safer now! (Applause.) You
need to talk about freedom of speech because you need freedom of speech to say that a
person's sexual preference is nobody's' damn business! (Applause.)

You need freedom
of speech because you have to say that if there are problems with jobs, it is not the
immigrants who [are] fleeing for their lives that is creating the problem of jobs! (Applause.)
And you need freedom of speech to say that once and for all American history has to be
taught instead of American mythology!

I'd like to close
with a little song. It was made up in jest but I hope it will always ring my ears.
"There are five thousand reds in the Plaza" -- you [know?] it -- sing along!

"There are
five thousand reds in the Plaza.
There are five thousand reds in the Plaza.
The microphone's loud and it's drawing a crowd.
I'm sure that the rules say it's just not allowed!
This will look bad in the papers, this will look bad
in the press.
Call out the troopers from Oakland. They'll get us out
of this mess!"

(Loud, prolonged applause.)

Nancy Skinner:
_____________________that the movement was still alive! Was that the movement was dead!
Speaking of songs, we have re-issued the record of Christmas carols that the Free Speech
Movement arrestees made to raise money for their legal defense. They're [on sale] right
over there.

Jackie Goldberg,
as I mentioned, is on the Los Angeles School Board, and in Berkeley we have the
opportunity to elect two fine people to the Berkeley School Board in November, Joe Gross
and Stephen Lustig. Our next guest, sang at the hootenanny last night, [which] was a great
success. Throughout this week, we have many more exciting events planned and I hope you
will all come. There are schedules that are being circulated throughout the crowd. If you
need information and you don't get it today, you can come to the Graduate Assembly Office.

Now before we let
Barbara Dane sing, as in all events like this, those of us who organized it went well
beyond our means. We are in debt at least $3,000, and we need your help so we can have the
rest of this week be as successful as today. We have some people with donation cans;
they're going to be circulating the crowd, and if each of you could just reach in your
pockets and pull a little bit out and put it in those cans, you would really really help
us, and we feel it'd finish out this week without any debt. And everyone here who flew
from all across the country might be able to -- that no one's been paid; no one's travel
has been paid. We might be able to give them just a little compensation for coming out
here with us today! (Applause.) So! Put a little in the can.

Barbara Dane was
here 20 years ago today, and she climbed onto that police car where Jack Weinberg was
trapped, and she sang a song as she's going to for you today. (Applause.)

Barbara Dane: Thank you. That
gives me great pleasure! There's only time for one song which tears my heart apart
because I wanted to sing a song about non-intervention in Central America as well, but
I'll settle for a little bit of shouting on that score, and let you join yourselves
together in the slogan that you hear all over the world these days. I was in Europe just
now and there was a big demonstration there with slogans reaching as far as Washington, I
hope. (Shouts "Non casteron" several times, in response with audience.)

Beautiful!
Alright! Do it every day a little bit, alright? (Laughter.) Instead I'm going to
ask you to join together in a song that's one of the songs that's part of our tremendous
legacy of songs that can carry you through any kind of situation, any kind of disaster,
any kind of tension, any kind of -- it's a -- like I said last night, it oughta be put in
every kid's diaper pocket when they're born. It's part of that great legacy of songs that
the Afro-American people have created and given to the rest of us. Now there is also a way
of singing. You contrast the tension, the sadness, the grief, the fears, and you contrast
that with the job of release and struggle. So the first thing we're going to do is start
this song out with some moaning. If you don't know what moaning is, it means kind of
humming in harmony, right? (Laughter.) It [means] crying. So moan with me a little
bit now. (Sings:) Oh, freedom -- o-o-o-oh freeeeeedom! Oooh, freedom - oh... (Some
words sung and spoken.)

Don't you wanna be
free? Yeah. (Loud, long applause.) You wanna be free? Do the people down in El
Salvador needa be free? Yeah! Do the people down in Nicaragua needa stay free? Yeah! Do
the people over in Cuba need respect for the freedom they have built? Yeah! How 'bout the
people in Vietnam? Do the people right down in South Africa today deserve -- deserve their
movement in __________, their day of freedom? Yes! Say that again. Yes! Do the people in
Mississippi --__________ to Washington D.C., California, New York. Do we deserve our
__________ and do we deserve one day to be free of all this damn racist, sexist
exploitation. Do we mean it? Yeah! Let me hear it again! Yeah! And again. Yeah! There
we're gonna be free! Free! Free! free, free, free, free! (Applause.)

Nancy Skinner: Thank you,
Barbara. We're going to have some more singing at the end of the rally. (Applause.)

We are extremely
honored that our next speaker agreed to participate in this rally. From his essay in the Daily
Cal yesterday, we know his grasp[s] of the issues we face are as incisive today as
they were 20 years ago. It is with great pleasure that I introduce Mario Savio. (Long,
loud applause.)

Mario Savio: Thank you, Nancy
and good luck in the election. It's okay. It's fine, it's fine. I tried to write out a
speech, because I was told that we had a very tight schedule. And I tried, I've really
tried to write a speech for you for this occasion -- couldn't do it! So -- I think we'll
have to do it with notes and wing it. (Laughter.)

The thing in my
childhood which most people here have some familiarity with, that moved me the most
deeply, were the pictures of piles of bodies. I am not Jewish; those were mostly Jewish
bodies. There were a lot of children's bodies in those piles. There were people of all
ages; they were very thin. And I remembered seeing those pictures as a very young child
and I could not understand those pictures as a young child, and I do not understand those
pictures now. (Applause.)

And I got an idea
that I sort of got stuck with for a number of years: that if people had really noticed the
bodies, the piles of bodies, if they had seen the pictures as I had, then they would have
changed the way we live with one another. But I could see that nothing all that much had
been changed about the way we live with one another.

The Civil Rights
movement just burst on the United States right on the tube. And we saw people afraid, not
of pictures, afraid of things more frightening than any I had had to face. And they faced
their fears -- they held one another to face their fears. And many of us in white
American who had had the privileges of at least a cultural middle class -- after
all, you know, I'm white, ethnic, working-class, actually. I'm mostly Sicilian, actually.
But we all felt, somehow, we were part of the middle class. And I remember my parents
saying things like: "You don't know how lucky you are. You haven't even had to work
for it," they'd sometimes say. And I don't say that to put them down. They'd
sometimes say that because they had had to struggle.

And so I saw the
people on the tube, and they had none of the privileges that I had. And more to
fear. They overcame their fear by holding one another -- against the snarling dogs
we saw, the snapping and the snarling dogs, against the torrents of water from the
firehoses -- and they held one another! And that got to the children of
white America. And we threw ourselves ardently into their movement. We wanted to be part
of them, because in America of the 1950's -- a very boring and in some ways scary time --
we had seen nothing of people holding one another. And that's what the black people
showed us -- that we could overcome our fears by holding one another. (Applause.)

One principal task
of that movement was to bring together blacks and whites. I remember a button that many of
us cherished, a SNCC button -- Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee -- two clasped
hands, black and white -- equality. That was a great achievement of the movement, an
attempt at achievement, a partial achievement -- to bring about, within America,
solidarity of those who had privilege and subtle fear -- fear that could not quite be
named, but those who had the fear of police dogs; those who had not enough to eat; those
who had seen their own parents humiliated; seen, say, a 60 year-old man called
"boy" repeatedly -- and who had to grow up with that. And we attempted to bring
together those two parts of America -- the part that the Mississippi all around us wanted hidden
-- and our part -- the perfect part.

Those did come
together, and there was established in those days a deep solidarity. It wasn't
perfect.

Following the lead
of black people, who -- by some miracle that we will never understand with complete
precision -- managed to think their way and act their way out of a dungeon that they had
been placed in. Following the lead of black people, one group after another, one group of
oppressed people, cast off, discarded the definitions of inferiority by which society was
keeping them -- had gotten them to collide -- to collude -- in keeping them powerless or
poor. One group after another. It was black people first, they were "niggers" no
more. It was "spics" who then were Hispanic-Americans. It was
"wetbacks" -- Chicanos; it was "redskins" or even "Indians"
who became Native Americans. It was all women. It was -- and this really was hard for that
aging, white middle class perfection to take -- it was even even "fags" and
"dykes," and somehow -- we now had "lesbians" and "gay men."
(Applause.)

Together, all of
these people are a numerical majority in America. We are the majority! We are the
majority! (Applause.)

Now let me say to
you something that this means. The majority makes demands. The minority calls the majority
"the interest groups," and so now you have the struggle between the new majority
to take control -- after all of our society, the democratic society -- we are
the majority -- and on the other side, the aging, old establishment minority.
Alright! We could break the bank for them, given the way in which they've got the pie
split up. And it was discovered by us in the course of struggle, that if the need of each
of these groups that formed a new majority -- if those needs were to be met -- and they
often were needs expressed very appropriately in demands on the public authority --
well, we found that America would have to change direction. We discovered this, I think,
especially in the Seventies. America would need to change direction -- how? How?

I, fortunately, am
not --[Inaudible question.] I do too! (Laughter and applause.) I --
fortunately, it gives me a certain liberty -- am not a Marxist, and so I can say
it. I can say it: America, to accommodate the just demands of the new majority, has to
become at least a little bit less capitalist! (Applause.) That's not such a
big deal. I mean, let me say this -- there are perhaps two, maybe three countries of the
major industrialized countries, in all the world, that don't have publicly financed,
comprehensive health insurance, say! We are one of them! We are one of them! (Applause.)
Okay. So what I'm trying to say is, that some element of moving in that direction
is sort of like the metric system - come on, get off the dime, America! Now, now --
this shift in our values -- and let me spell it out -- not just a name -- this shift in
our values - a shift! Hey, not a blueprint! Not jumping in the pool before you can
swim. A shift! This shift in our values means that the direction of America is
dominated less by production for private profit; less by production for war -- and more
more [... (indistinct)] by production to meet ordinary, human needs! (Loud
applause.)

And here is the
clincher and what we need to say. What we need to speak to America, because this
recognition has come from the real struggles of the majority because of that for
us, and we're lucky at this, eh? For us, becoming [fathingly (?)] less capitalistic; it
means we don't have to become less democratic - we can become more democratic! (Applause.)

But the
understanding to bring this about is not something that matures overnight; and so there's time
-- there has been time then, for the reaction to take action. What does that mean? We are
now confronted -- under the guise behind the celluloid shield of an actor president -- we are
now confronted with the cold war in America in its last stand. Right? (Applause.)
What is it? Well, it has a cultural aspect; it has a military aspect; it has an economic
aspect -- and we only have a few minutes, O.K.? (Laughter.) It's antiquated
cultural values. It is that. It is very large corporations, it is that; it is the
Pentagon, it is that. Alright! Now let me say -- let me say -- we need to begin to
confront it, directly naming it and moving beyond it, and why? Because it is too dangerous
to do otherwise. (Applause.)

People outside our
borders, less wealthy than we, have not been able to afford this dalliance with pure
impossible capitalism. They have not been able to afford that; the people of Central
America have said, "For us, capitalism means life under Somoza -- one Somoza or
another! And we don't want it any more!" Alright! (Applause.)

They have
succeeded in one place in making revolution -- Nicaragua. The revolution has succeeded in
Nicaragua. (Applause.) Now, my friends, I had trouble during the anti-Vietnam War
days because it was hard for me to talk about something I had not seen. I have not been to
Nicaragua, so what I say, you need to check. Check it! We know the names of lots of people
in Nicaragua. We know the names of more people in Nicaragua than people in any other
Central American nation, for sure! We know Daniel Ortega, we know Miguel Descoto, a priest
and a member of the Cabinet. We know Ernesto Cardenal, another priest, and his brother,
Fernando Cardenal. They're both in the government; it doesn't sound like godless,
atheistic, communism to me! (Loud applause.)

They write
beautiful poems and had I more time, I would have read one. (Found out?) Cardenal,
Ernesto, is a published poet. Jocanda _____________, an Italian name, he's written some
beautiful poems. This is Nicaragua! These are real people. I want to tell you about one
other person: ____________ _______________. Very few people here, I'm sure, know the name,
Nelda ____________. She is a censor in Nicaragua. And they have censorship in Nicaragua
because they have a state of emergency, because the United States, the CIA backed Contras
are attacking from them from four sides right now -- in our name -- with the money
taken out of the school lunch program of our children! This is criminal! (Long,
loud applause.)

Let me just say
one last thing to you about this, please; one last thing, and then I'm done. They are
afraid that our children will be sent to slaughter their children. They are afraid of
those same kinds of images that frightened me! They are afraid of dead bodies! Our
government is preparing a bloodbath in Central America, and we have a choice -- we have a
choice! Either we manage to prevent that by establishing some kinds of bonds of real
solidarity between us and the people of Nicaragua, of El Salvador,of all of Central
America, and therefore make it our "Mississippi" again -- for this generation. Then
it was white and black; now it is ........ (Applause drowns out last few words.)
Either we succeed in making it the Mississippi of this generation, or it will be the
Vietnam of this generation, and it will destroy their society and tear ours absolutely
apart, and the choice may be -- I hope it is -- the choice may still be ours -- I
hope it is. Thank you. (Long, loud applause.)

Nancy Skinner: Thank you. It's
run over-time. We need to thank the University for not pulling the plug. We want to end
with one song and send you off with one song. We encourage you to come tonight. Tonight,
at 7:30 at Wheeler Auditorium, Mario, Michael Rossman, Bettina Aptheker -- many other Free
Speech Movement vets will be there tonight to tell the story. We're gonna sing one more
song together. Remember, if you haven't registered to vote -- register. Go to the tables
that are on the Plaza. [Presenting] the Freedom Song Network.